


A Place We Could Learn To Call Home.

by Adertily



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Babies, Caleb gets Jester pet chickens, Domestic, F/M, Fjorester, Fjorjester, Fluff, Mild Sexual Content, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, Your gonna love it, its just cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 06:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20925410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adertily/pseuds/Adertily
Summary: She blinked at him when he entered her room that night. Before understanding had settled in her eyes and she’d taken his hand and led him to the bed, letting his body carefully press her down into the comfort of the mattress as she sighed against his mouth. The inn was quiet, so they tried to be too, but of all the marks they’d left on each other’s bodies, there remained a silent one that did not fade.





	A Place We Could Learn To Call Home.

**Author's Note:**

> I have not written for this fandom before, I wanted to try something smaller than my usual fics and Fjorjester have my heart. 
> 
> Please be kind. A human being wrote this story, and a human being would love some feedback :)
> 
> (I wrote this aware that Nott had a secret child but before I got to the whole halfling reveal)

Their daughter had been an accident.

A knife had sunk in horrifyingly close to the inside of Jester’s thigh, her body turning pale as she collapsed onto the ground, the life seeping out of her on to the damp earth in a stream of dark liquid. Caduceus had been knocked out during the fight, and with both healers down it had taken Beau’s scream of fury and Fjord’s moment of sheer adrenaline for those still standing to finish the fight and panicked, scramble to do everything they could to save her. While Fjord’s heart had been tearing itself into painful pieces, and he realised, with something inside of him breaking, this ache would only ever be for her.

Kiltering over a knife-edge, they kept her alive for a few hours, long enough for Caduceus to wake and fix the rest of her broken pieces. And when the colour had returned to her cheeks, and her eyes had opened again with their usual spark and she’d said, “Why did you idiots let both of your clerics go down?”

Fjord had kissed the delicate grin off her face as everyone politely turned away. He knew the cold remnants of terror that had formed in his heart could only be fixed by her warmth, and he needed it. Entirely. 

She blinked at him when he entered her room that night. Before understanding had settled in her eyes and she’d taken his hand and led him to the bed, letting his body carefully press her down into the comfort of the mattress as she sighed against his mouth. The inn was quiet, so they tried to be too, but of all the marks they’d left on each other’s bodies, there remained a silent one that did not fade. 

The house took some getting used to. Necessity had brought them here and necessity would keep them here, as much as Jester had contended in the earlier months that she was _ fine _ and there was really no need for her to stay behind while the rest of the Nein continued travelling the world - without her _ . _

_ You need to look after yourself, your well being affects more than just your own now. _

Fjord stayed with her. Putting up with her grumblings in a display of solidarity. Support, tinted with harsh colours of guilt for the accident that he was far more than a little bit responsible for. But she had finally agreed to stay, after the itch for adventure had been dampened by the immobility of her growing waistline. Fjord wasn’t sure if he was allowed to find the sight of it endearing or not, she tended to glare at him when she caught him looking. But there was no real heat behind her gaze.

The house was cozy. A cottage to the west, in a stiflingly quiet village, with a hospital and a school, though neither were particularly large.

The locals grew oranges, a special kind. Caleb could sense the magic in the trees as if they were blessed with something - something peaceful and gentle. But the oranges looked like oranges and it was hard to know what the point of it was. It didn’t appear important enough to try to pry, and the locals didn’t seem to know. Yet Fjord had sensed the moment he’d first passed through the village that the sea of orchards seemed to stand over the town like a kind cattle dog over its flock. Children playing under the branches as they fended off the heat from the summer sun, the wind rustling through the leaves. It seemed like a place they could learn to call home.

The first trimester had been delightful, in as delightful as it was to be kicked in the face by a horse that _ really _ didn’t want to be working that day. Not just because she was bored stiff. The slowness of it took some adjusting to, the hormones telling her to settle and nest, fighting against the years of travelling and battling she had grown accustomed to. Her body constantly uncomfortable, her mind dragged through sleepy clouds, her stomach always unsettled to the point where she banished anyone from entering the kitchen when the visited, incase they invented something that had her rushing to the bathroom. Cad’s food was fine. He seemed to know what wouldn’t set her off, and for that, she was immensely grateful for him being around when he could be.

Caleb wasn’t sure what to make of the situation, keeping to the corners of a house that was not his, but that welcomed him nonetheless. Yasha came and went, leaving a book of pressed flowers that she had collected, companioned by notes of their names and where you could find them - for the baby, she told them. 

Beau was trying to pretend nothing had changed, while balancing on the understanding that a lot had. She missed her friend on missions; aware that it would be a long time before she was able to return. The monk came to the house with trophies and stories, making sure to dim the excitement in her voice when she told them to the blue tiefling, careful not to set off any painful longing in her friend's heart. 

Nott was the only real help. Though Fjord was concerned that perhaps some of the prenatal care techniques that applied to goblins might not be usable, or even safe, for most people. But mostly she taught Jester to adjust, to accept the lull that was needed to look after herself, to realise that this was a life she could love too. For entirely different reasons.

Caleb showed up one morning with a cart full of chickens. In a village that had few secrets to dig up, and locals that seemed boringly welcoming, there was little for Jester to do. Though she volunteered in the hospital in the afternoons and took to scribing the adventures she shared so far with the Nein, her sketchbooks turning into a diary that soon formed something short of a novel. And the rest of her time she spent with her new hens, each of them named for people she had met, or places she had been, playing that they were her little church of worshipers to the traveller, selling the extra eggs at the farmers market in city on weekends. And it happened so slowly that she barely even noticed. But she found herself feeling at home.

Months passed and Fjord's guilt over the whole situation bearably lessened. She needed him, in a way he’d never been needed before. Pulling his body close under the duck-feathered quilt to keep her warm during cold nights, needing his arms around him when emotions welled up in her eyes, needing someone to hold when sleepiness turned her cuddly. 

And then there was the sex. She blamed it on the hormones, but something carnal had turned to a flame inside her and Fjord was beyond willing to help. 

Something shifted between them. It was unspoken, an instinctual thing, as he woke up to the light of morning and watched her sleeping face for a few minutes, how her eyes would blink open, bleary and stubborn and beautifully dishevelled. He could feel it in his heart. That perhaps there was something about this whole accident that hadn’t been completely accidental, though he wasn’t sure which god to thank. 

They became known as Jester _ and _ Fjord to the others, neither name rarely spoken without the other. A pair. A duo, that were taking on a challenge far braver than the rest were ever willing to face.

Fjord called for the midwife after Jester’s concentrated breathing turned pained a short while after midnight. Fjord tried to keep her calm as he struggled to follow the instruction himself, as she helplessly shuffled her body in the bed, trying to make herself comfortable and bury away from the pain in her pelvis that was spreading across her lower back. 

Humming through the discomfort as she tried to concentrate, her heartbreaking noises spiking, turning to whimpers as her hand searched for his to grip onto. The strength of it should have hurt him, but her hand was small in his and most of her energy was concentrated elsewhere. Crying out as she wavered. Body slumping against the soft pillows after each contraction as she tried to rest and calm herself. He had to remind her how well she was doing, and how close she was to it all being over. 

Throughout the whole thing, there was one worry that wouldn’t leave his mind. Jester had not been fortunate with the most normal childhood, and the unexpected nature of her pregnancy concerned him over how she might react to holding their baby in her arms for the first time. Adoption was a possibility, they had talked about it - and he would do whatever she wanted, even if it killed him a little inside. 

But all his worries melted like marshmallows in one of those mugs of hot chocolate that Jester loved to drink so much, when he’d seen the soft look in her eyes replace the searching that had been there a second before, the moment their daughter was placed in a bundle against her chest.

Jesters arm’s wrapped protectively around the tiny, teal-green tiefling like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

And when Jester smiled as the baby blinked its eyes open, it felt like the warmth of sunlight after weeks of grey skies, bright and beautiful and the most wonderful thing he had ever seen. 

Beau warmed up eventually, and Caleb became more sure of himself when they visited. Yasha was strangely a natural, though Fjord thought it best to keep Knott away, she had a habit of holding the baby by her ankles, he had to explain that most babies tended to be more delicate than goblin ones. 

It still took a few months for the rest of his guilt to slip away. When one evening he returned from helping in the orchards, it was summer, and so the sun was still bright over the green of the garden. He found Jester smiling, sat on the grass, the toddler content in her lap, little horns growing in twirls as her mother held her hands around the little, curly-haired girl's tummy to stop her from leaning and reaching out to pet a perturbed chicken as it passed by. His girls giggled at one another, the sound a melody that made him smile. Then she leant down to kiss the baby's head with all the gentleness of the mother he’d been hoping she might be. Before she looked up and noticed him watching, her smile turning into something else, yet just as soft. 

And he knew she was happy. That the pieces of themselves that had been wandering had finally settled, and he knew they would be okay.

Because necessity had brought them here. But now it was _home_ that would keep them here.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you think! Any favourite lines or moments? I would love to know. 😄


End file.
